


Heavy is the Head

by glorious_spoon



Category: Agent Carter (TV)
Genre: Bickering, Character Study, Gen, Humor, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-24
Updated: 2019-07-24
Packaged: 2020-07-17 22:08:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19963993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glorious_spoon/pseuds/glorious_spoon
Summary: Roger Dooley spends an evening wrangling three of his agents and wishing he had a drink.





	Heavy is the Head

**Author's Note:**

  * For [moon_custafer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/moon_custafer/gifts).



> This is for the AO3 Migrant Aid Fic Exchange for **moon_custafer** , who donated to RAICES and asked for Agent Carter fic featuring Chief Dooley. I hope you enjoy!

It’s seven-thirty in the morning, Roger has been at the office for two hours, and he’s already regretting the fact that he didn’t put whiskey in his coffee this morning. There’s a bottle in the bottom of his desk, but while being the Chief has its perks, it’s not quite enough to quell the rumor mill if one of his agents catches him downing straight liquor when the sun’s just barely over the horizon.

Carter, most likely, given his luck. Although at this point Thompson is grating on his nerves almost as bad. He likes the boy. Thompson’s got potential, good family connections, a quick mind and an easy charm with the soft-touches that doesn’t get in the way of handling the uglier aspects of the job. Normally, Roger would be happy to shoot the shit with him for a minute or two over lousy commissary coffee that’s still better than that dishwater Carter brews. Knowing her, it’s a pretty good bet that the bad coffee is intentional, but on the other hand she’s a Brit, so who the hell knows.

Anyway, Thompson isn’t usually the one he wants to strangle at half-past-seven, but today is the goddamn exception.

“...can’t focus on the stakeout if I have to spend all my time babysitting some lady agent who doesn’t know one end of a gun from the other,” Thompson concludes, flopping into the chair across from Roger’s desk. He finally looks at Roger’s face, and whatever he sees there has him straightening up, pulling a winning kind of smile onto his face. Possibly the belated realization that his little rant wasn’t getting quite the reception he was hoping for. “Come on, sir. You’ve gotta see what a bad idea this is.”

Too bad for him that that’s a smile that works better on politicians’ wives than on one Roger Dooley, former Army staff sergeant and current babysitter for a passel of allegedly competent agents. “I don’t have time for this shit, Thompson. The handoff is supposed to be happening tonight. Carter’s the only agent who isn’t out on assignment, so Carter is who you get.”

“She’s barely an agent. She’s a glorified goddamn secretary—”

“Did I give you the impression that this was up for debate?”

“Okay, but look—”

“This is not a democracy, Thompson. And I have better things to do with my morning than listen to you whine about the assignments that I give you. Are we clear?”

Thompson’s mouth snaps shut. His cheeks color. “Yessir.”

“Good.” He pulls his cooling coffee to him, takes a sip, grimaces. “Look, son, I like you. I do. But if you can’t keep one lady agent under control for one single stakeout, you’re not gonna have much luck as a section chief. Something to keep in mind.”

“Yessir,” Thompson says again, but his face is more relaxed as he pushes his chair out and stands. “Sorry to take up your time.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Roger says. “Now get the hell out of my office, I have work to do.”

*

He isn’t that surprised when Carter pops into his office half an hour later, file folder clutched in one manicured hand. “Chief Dooley, if you have a moment?”

Roger waves a hand over the stacks of paperwork on his desk. “Does it look like I have a moment?”

“I’ll be quick, then.” She slips inside and pulls the door shut behind her. Roger considers ordering her out, but under the lipstick and the film star looks, Carter has the kind of bulldog stubbornness that he’d admire if she were a man, and the odds of her cooperating quietly are slim to none.

“Fine,” he sighs, pushing his chair back. “What can I do for you, Carter?”

“Well, I just…” she trails off, looking more uncertain than he can ever remember seeing Carter look. “I just had a question about my assignment.”

“Of course you did. I just had Thompson in here chewing my ear off about it.”

Her painted lips twist slightly. It’s not a surprise. Thompson may have a crush, but there’s clearly no love lost on Carter’s end of things. Not that he gives a damn either way, but if Carter could just get herself a boyfriend maybe she’d start thinking about settling down, starting a family, and getting the hell out of his hair. “Of course. I’m not here to complain, Chief—”

“But?”

“But--well, nothing, I suppose. I was wondering how long this assignment is expected to last.”

“You want field work, Carter, you got to stop complaining about the field work you get. Thompson’s a good agent. Maybe you could learn a thing or two from him.”

“I’m sure,” Carter says, in tones that imply the exact opposite. “I wasn’t complaining. Sir.”

“Glad to hear it.” Roger leans back in his seat, folds his hands over his belly. It’s been getting a little rounder in the past few months, supplemented by too much cheap diner food and not enough good home cooking, but that’s definitely not anything he wants to think about now. Not when he’s been cooling his heels on his office couch for the past few weeks and he’s already been getting sidelong looks over it. Letty will let him back into the house sooner or later; she always does. Until then, his sore back and his unhappy gut are just the price he gets to pay for all of his husbandly failures. “You’re with Thompson until Krzeminski is back from D.C., and then you’re back on the phones. Any complaints, _Agent?_ ”

Carter’s mouth, which had been half-open, snaps shut. She straightens. 

“No sir,” she says evenly. “None whatsoever.”

“Thank Christ,” Roger says. “Now do me a favor and get out of my office, will you?”

She nods sharply and turns to go. Over her shoulder, Roger can see Sousa watching from the bullpen, but he looks away before Carter can catch him watching.

Just one of the many reasons it’s exhausting to be stuck with a lady agent, however competent she might be. Not a one of the men can keep their heads in the game when she’s around.

*

The stakeout is supposed to start at sundown, but he can see Thompson and Carter leave together an hour before that. Bickering, at least by their postures, but at least it doesn’t look like any bloodshed is imminent.

“Chief?” Sousa asks as he pauses by the desk. “You need something?”

“Nah,” Roger says, and eyes the nearly empty bullpen. On the other side of the room, Yauch is packing up; everyone else is already gone. “You could head home, you know.”

“Nah,” Sousa says back, smiling. It almost reaches his eyes. His crutch is leaned up against his desk, his bad leg stretched out like the hours of inactivity nag at it. “I’m a night owl. Besides, it’s easier to get things done when it’s quiet.”

“Ain’t that the truth,” Roger sighs. “Alright, well, I’m heading out for some dinner. I’ll be back in an hour or so.”

“I’ll watch the phones,” Sousa says, with a wry little twist to his mouth. Roger thinks about saying something else, but in the end he just claps Sousa on the shoulder and heads out without another word. 

*

The line at the automat is longer than expected, the coffee weak, the overhead fluorescents flickering and unpleasant. It’s all Roger can do to smile pleasantly at the friendly redhead who takes his money. The Captain America Adventure Hour is playing on the radio, and Betty Carver’s grating voice seems to be drilling into his skull by the time he has his food and gets himself back out into the dark and blessedly silent street.

It’s tempting, very tempting, to drop his sad excuse for a dinner into the nearest trashcan, go pick up his car, and drive back to the house. But the last time he was there Letty slammed the door in his face and told him in no uncertain terms that his presence wasn’t welcome. Which is goddamn rich considering who’s paying the bills on that place, but what the hell’s he supposed to do?

Go back to the office and eat his sad tuna sandwich, that’s what.

Sousa gives him a distracted wave when he passes by, still bent over a stack of files. Poor guy. He’s got a good head on his shoulders and Roger tries to give him as much fieldwork as he can, but he knows how the other guys are. It’s too damn easy to look at Sousa, with his limp and his crutch and the pained creases of his face when he’s on his feet too long and think _there but for the grace of God._

Not like any of them exactly came back from the war in one piece, but Sousa wears his scars where everybody can see them, and that’s not easy.

Not Roger’s problem, though. He takes his sandwich into his office and has more or less demolished it when the phones start ringing. He starts up to his feet, but Sousa is up before him, moving with unexpected speed to snatch up the nearest phone. Roger can hear the echo of his voice, sharp and too loud in the silence, as he says, “SSR, this is Agent-- _Peggy?_ Hang on, what are you talking about? What happened to--okay, yeah. Hang on, let me grab a pen.” He casts around for a moment on his desk before snatching up a pen and a scrap of paper that looks as though it might have been a takeout menu in a previous life. “Okay. Yeah--no, you guys stay put. Okay. You have--yeah, it’s just Chief Dooley and me. Yeah. I’ll let him know, just hang in there.”

Roger is halfway down to the bullpen by the time Sousa hangs up, cursing himself for a goddamn idiot. Of _course_ Carter managed to wander into trouble. What the hell was he thinking, sending her out on a nightime stakeout— “What happened?” he snaps.

Sousa jumps, then looks up. He looks tense, but not frantic, so at least Carter hasn’t managed to get herself shot or something. Hopefully that means that Thompson is still in one piece too.

“Uh,” he says. “Well, apparently gangsters can’t drive.”

“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”

Sousa winces. “It means that their company car got rear-ended by a couple of goons in a milk truck full of explosives, and, well—”

“Shit,” Roger says. “Any casualties?”

“Carter and Thompson are both fine,” Sousa says. “But. We should probably get down there before the fire trucks start showing up and turn the whole thing into a three-ring circus.”

“You can explain the rest of it in the car,” Roger says firmly. “Let’s go.”

*

He’s not all that familiar with this particular section of Red Hook, but as it turns out he doesn’t even need the map that Sousa fishes out of the glove compartment; the sirens and the flames licking up toward the dark sky are guide enough.

“Great,” Roger sighs. Sousa makes a noise under his breath as they turn down a side street toward the commotion. If Roger didn’t know better, he’d think it was a snort. 

The situation doesn’t get any better when they finally make it to the scene. There’s a milk truck turned half on its side with the entire back blown out, a twisted mess of scrap metal. The cab is still burning, and the back end of the agency car where Carter and Thompson must have been bickering through their stakeout is a crumpled mess.

Thompson is nowhere to be seen, but Carter is standing on the sidewalk, one heeled shoe resting on the back of the man who’s handcuffed facedown on the sidewalk. She has a gun in one hand. an expression of mild annoyance on her face, and not so much as a hair out of place.

“Ah,” she says when they come down the sidewalk. “Hello, Daniel. Chief Dooley.” The handcuffed mook at her feet spits out a curse, and she glances down at him. “I wasn’t talking to you. You’re in quite enough trouble as it is.”

Sousa makes another suspicious snorting noise, and Roger finds himself biting the inside of his mouth to keep from doing the same. He folds his face into a scowl. “Carter, what the hell are you doing? Where’s Thompson?”

“Running down this gentleman’s friend, I believe,” she says. “The rest of the explosives have been secured. I believe the firemen are on their way now.”

“Yeah, I can hear the sirens.” Roger pinches the bridge of his nose. It’s not Carter’s fault, he reminds himself firmly. This was just one whole pile of bad luck stacked up all at once.

But still. “You tell Thompson not to go running off without backup?”

“I did,” Carter says, sounding offended.

“And he said?”

She shrugs eloquently, and Roger makes a face. Because, yeah, there wasn’t much chance of Thompson listening to anybody on that front, let alone a women. Let alone _Carter_. Boy has a thirst to prove himself. It’s usually a good thing, as long as it doesn’t get him killed out there with no backup.

Before he can get too worried, though, there are footsteps echoing up a nearby alley, followed by an obnoxiously jaunty whistle and Jack Thompson, hatless, disheveled, and bloody, frog-marching a sullen-looking goon. He starts when he saw Roger, but he pulls his reaction pretty well, all things considered. “Chief! Good, wasn’t sure Carter’d be able to get a call in.”

“I do know how to use a telephone, thank you, Jack.”

“Never doubted it,” Thompson says lightly. “Sousa, good to see you. Working late?”

“Like you’re one to talk,” Sousa says dryly. 

Roger rolls his eyes. He doesn’t know what the hell is going on between the three of them, but if he lets them get going they’ll be here all night. Firetrucks are converging on the scene, and a handful of black-and-whites are squealing tires down the alley. “Alright, cut it out. Carter, put a call in to the containment team. Somebody needs to come down here and pack this up before anybody gets a good look at it. After that—” he scans the three of them, then tosses his keys at Carter, who catches them neatly, looking startled. “Get off my crime scene. I don’t want to see any of you until Monday morning, when we can all sit down and have a nice chat about _proper investigative procedure_ , am I clear?”

Carter starts to speak, but it’s Thompson, surprisingly, who intervenes. “Crystal, sir.” And then, to Carter, “Come on. Pretty sure Sousa owes both of us a drink.”

“I never agreed to that,” Sousa complains, but it’s mild. He falls into step beside them as they head back toward Roger’s car, and Roger shakes his head and goes to talk to the officers pouring into the street.

A goddamn headache, every last one of them.


End file.
